Meet me in the garden where the weeds grow tall

[unbraided]

CHARACTERS: Kili ( unbraided ) & Frodo ( ringbearer )
LOCATION: O2 Gardens
WARNINGS: feelings :c
SUMMARY: Thorin disappears and Kili feels guilty about lying which means it's clearly time for an overdue talk with his hobbit buddy.
NOTES: gratuitous feelings all over the place, sorry TQ

Now that the bustle of post-jump has ended, Kili’s left feeling as if he’s adrift in an ocean. It’s like he was back in the barrel Bilbo had packed him in back in Mirkwood, scrambling to hold himself together and not drown or worry too much on whether he and the rest would live through this.

And there’s guilt throughout it all.

Had he wasted the only opportunity to speak with Thorin one more time? Had the lies they told and the things they’d kept from him damaged it all? One of the last things Kili remembers is the fighting, being banned from seeing Thranduil or Legolas and he’d felt as if he was but a dwarfling being chided for dragging mud through the house or skipping lessons. Kili was young, it’s true, and despite the fact that he’s had to grow up in the face of his own death, he’s still little more than the young dwarrow he was when he arrived.

So Thranduil worries over the dragon he’s gained guardianship over and Fili once more bears title of heir without king, and Kili feels nearly as if he is on the other side of a window looking in. But still, sometimes he is glad to not be the heir, to be steps away from a throne and crown Kili knows he could never have borne, and this is one of them. 

Still, it leaves Kili with a foul taste in his mouth and the silence of the gardens around him. There’s only so much he can take, so much bottling up and silence and while Kili knows he can’t burden his brother with more, he can’t keep quiet or he’ll shatter like too thin ice across a lake. With a shuddered breath he fishes his comm out and carefully plucks out a message.

Are you in the gardens? A pause and Can we talk?

Comments

[unbraided]

The sight of those tears is not really one Kili had expected, and with a soft touch he brushes the wetness from Frodo's cheeks, brow creased. If Frodo had simply cried, hand simply put his arms tight around Kili and held him close, maybe it would have simply been a relief, a gladness in his chest.

Instead, Frodo seeks to comfort, to bear grief and he speaks, calls Kili brave and heroic and good with that wavering smile and voice surprising strong for such a little thing. For a moment he's shocked silent, letting the words build up and crest in the back of his mind. And then Kili bows his head, presses their foreheads together with a soft hiccup, tears falling from his eyes.

"And I am honored to be your friend, Frodo," A smile, wavering and soft, "I cannot say I have heard you in tales, but I wish I could have been there to see you grow up on mine."

[ringbearer]

There is a strength in the hobbit that few could openly see. It is one that is buried beneath layers and layers of suffering, an occasional madness but it is there. It is all that keeps the hero's feet moving, all that keeps him going when his body has long felt the limit passed.

Yet Frodo Baggins is a powerful little thing, even if he does not fully know the extent of how deeply that rings true. Perhaps not in the way of wielding a blade but there is a will and strength in him that has granted him an evil fate to begin with.

So he can bear this, if he can bear the world, he can bear his dear friend Kili's pain, feel it keenly as if it were his own. Shed tears for the brave, compassionate dwarf that he was. And maybe weep a little in his heart, that he had not ever been granted the blessing of meeting him in reality.

The words he says are painful but sweet, as are all the tales of Middle-earth, and Frodo laughs but it sounds a bit like a sob, gently smoothing back dark strands of hair in a tender gesture.

"Yes, you might have been there to see me in all my wildness, before I became a gentlehobbit."

Before he became what he could see. Someone unfixable and broken.

"But I might not know you then, but I know you now. And that is enough, I think, for now. For I would see darker days here if we had never met at all."

[unbraided]

Kili has learned not to underestimate even the most unlikely of people. Sure he'd always known that even small people can pack a punch, even he'd known appearances could be deceiving, but to see the well of strength still hidden in Frodo? Well, it is a surprise and will continue to be so even long after Frodo leaves back to his own quest and Kili is left to eke out a living on a metal ship floating in the sky.

That little laugh tears at him, tugs at bruised heartstrings and imprints itself along the tender lining of Kili's heart. He turns his face into Frodo's palm, tears wet against skin and a wet laugh of his own escapes him.

"I would like to have seen that, I think." Kili smiles, a broken little thing, " But this is enough. You have been a better friend to me than I ever expected, Frodo, and as long as I live I shall never forget that."